


Ordinary Miracles

by calathea



Category: Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 02:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calathea/pseuds/calathea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They let Dan out of the hospital after three days, with a prescription for anti-depressants, a medicated cream for the rope burns on his neck, and a plastic cup he thought might be a specimen container to hold the flowers Duck had brought him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ordinary Miracles

They let Dan out of the hospital after three days, with a prescription for anti-depressants, a medicated cream for the rope burns on his neck, and a plastic cup he thought might be a specimen container to hold the flowers Duck had brought him.

He disliked the rattling bottle of pills, resented the intrusion of the counsellor they'd made him see, the questions he'd been forced to answer, the tense and falsely cheerful smiles of the nurses and aides who'd seen to his care. He bore it, though, in the interests of getting out. He even knew, in some coldly logical corner of his mind, that his current euphoria might not last, that despair was too old and too comfortable a companion, that he might soon be glad of the muffled distance the pills would give him. So Dan thanked the doctor who wrote his prescription, and answered the counsellor with as little evasion as he knew how, after so many years of marriage, and smiled back at the nurses as sanely and unthreateningly as he could.

He'd had a bad moment on his second day in the hospital, thinking about going back to the motel, its dingy rooms stained with grief and fear in his mind. Duck, visiting the hospital that evening, had seemed to silently read his concerns. He had linked hands with Dan, his calloused fingers tracing slow patterns over Dan's skin. "Will you come home with me?" he had asked, "Just for a few days, until we can find you a place to live." Wordlessly, Dan had nodded, and twisted his hand in Duck's until their fingers twined together.

Duck picked him in the evening of his last day in the hospital, bringing with him Dan's suitcase. The drive to Duck's place was quiet, Duck breaking the silence only once to ask if Dan minded the radio. Dan wasn't uncomfortable, didn't feel the need to fill the empty spaces with words. He just sat, relaxed and incurious; ready to follow Duck wherever he went. The little voice inside his head was silent for now, even though he was allowing a near stranger to drive him who knew where, even though his future was murky at best. He watched the road ahead, the familiar curves and dips of the coast, and Duck's hands, moving competently over the wheel. The truck rattled and jolted over potholes, the music from the radio tinny and thin from the speaker by his knee.

The house they pulled up in front of was a simple, single-storey building. The outside was neat, but weather-beaten. The porch roof sagged a little, and the floor was worn and shiny from a thousand footsteps. Duck picked up the suitcase, juggled the bag and keys, and the door swung open. "Home," he sad, "Come on in."

Inside, the house was just as tidy, but also showing the effects of age. There was a deck out the back of the house, with a view of the water, the mainland hazy and vague in the distance.

"My dad bought this place back when land was cheap on the island," Duck said, opening a door off the living room. "Spare room. I'll put your bag in here."

"Your dad? " Dan asked, his voice still rusty and quiet.

"Dead." Duck met his eyes then swung away. "Kitchen," he said, pointing, "Living room. My room." This last door was shut. "Bathroom. You'll have to share with me."

Duck went back through to the kitchen, opened up the fridge, which rattled with bottles. "Want a drink?"

Dan was looking around the kitchen. The counters were uncluttered, the kitchen table scarred from many meals, but scrubbed clean. A couple of dishes – from breakfast, presumably – sat in the sink. On one of the kitchen chairs lay a fat, ugly cat, all four feet tucked tidily under its body. It blinked at him with one good eye, the other milky and blind, its ears tattered from battle.

"Oh, hey." Duck sounded apologetic. "I forgot to ask if you minded cats."

Dan eyed the cat. "He's yours?"

Duck shrugged, and laughed. "He's his own. He comes and goes." His long fingers slid over the cat's mottled coat, and the cat rolled over on the seat under the caress, purring noisily.

"Val didn't like pets," Dan heard himself say, his eyes on the gentle motion of Duck's hands.

Duck looked up at him. "Oh."

"I like cats though," Dan said, hastily, and the cat blinked at him again.

Duck smiled at him, went back to the fridge and grabbed a couple of sodas, tossing one over to Dan. He pushed open the back door, and threw himself down on a sagging old sofa with a sigh. "Smoke?" he asked, as Dan hovered in the doorway.

"No, thanks." Dan sat down a little warily on the old sofa, which sank and groaned in protest at his weight.

Duck had lit a cigarette and was taking a long, grateful drag. He leaned his head back against the cushions of the couch, and blew out the smoke in a sighing exhale. Turning his head slightly, he caught Dan watching him, and smiled.

They sat quietly for a while. Duck finished his cigarette, then popped open his can of soda. Dan found himself relaxing further and further into his seat, until, like Duck, he was sprawled in one corner, his legs stretched in front of him. He thought about Duck's house, about the neatly made bed he'd glimpsed in the spare room, about the closed door to Duck's own room. He compared the cheerful imperfections of the kitchen, the blistered paint on the rail of the back porch, with his wife's loathing of anything used, or soiled; her frequent discards of items that were no longer pristine. He thought about the divorce papers he knew were crammed in one corner of his suitcase. In his mind's eye, he could see the bottle of pills, sitting innocuously in the middle of Duck's kitchen table in their pharmacy bag.

He leaned his head back, and sighed, sinking deeper into the comfortable, broken old sofa. He saw, in his peripheral vision, Duck look over at him, his expression concerned, and Dan smiled. Reaching out, he linked his hand with Duck's, which was cool and damp from the can he'd been holding.

He closed his eyes. The evening sun was warm on his skin, and he could hear, faintly, the waves rushing up the pebbled stretch of coast below Duck's house. A clock ticked somewhere in the kitchen. Duck's hand in his was warm, and the fingers that had stroked the sleepy cat now passed over his own skin. So many ordinary miracles – the setting sun, the touch of skin on skin, the sweeping hands marking the passage of time – that he'd almost lost. Opening his eyes, he found himself smiling again at Duck. The watchful blue eyes softened, and Duck's air of hard-won peace settled back over him. Dan felt Duck's other hand come up to touch his cheek, and closed his eyes again, as softly, Duck's lips touched his, sweet from the soda. He slipped his own hand up to curl lightly at Duck's nape.

So many ordinary miracles.


End file.
